This story appears in FLOOD 13: The Tenth Anniversary Issue. You can purchase this special 252-page print edition featuring Gorillaz, Magdalena Bay, Mac DeMarco, Lord Huron, Bootsy Collins, Wolf Alice, and much more here.
Fred Armisen remembers his first recording like it was yesterday. “Me, Nick, Aldo, and Dave were classmates back then,” he recalls of his sixth-grade peers. “Nick and Aldo played the trumpet, I played electric guitar, and Dave played drums. We just recorded on a cassette recorder, one of the ones that lays flat.” Armisen remembers listening to the early recording later, and noticing that his contribution was just single notes on the electric guitar; he didn’t even know chords yet.
Despite such inauspicious beginnings, Armisen—an actor best-known for his work on Saturday Night Live, Wednesday, and Portlandia, as well as memorable performances in dozens of other TV shows and films—has enjoyed a fairly prolific recording career, beginning as a drummer with Chicago post-punks Trenchmouth and including musical appearances on albums by Kacey Musgraves, Matthew Sweet, Ty Segall, Les Savy Fav, and Death Valley Girls.
But for his new solo album, the practical and hilarious 100 Sound Effects, Armisen is back firmly on comedic turf. Released by distinguished Chicago indie label Drag City, 100 Sound Effects is broken into categories like “Music Store,” “Car Doors,” “Planes,” “Haunted House,” “Film,” and “Travel.” The short recording snippets run the gamut from music-venue inside jokes to the sound of a tent being zipped up and down. Some of Armisen’s Portlandia-style non sequitur humor shines through as well, especially on the tracks where two characters chat about random topics on a camping trip or while driving. Armisen notes that his comedy buddies John Mulaney and Bill Hader will love this record, since it touches on their type of humor.
100 Sound Effects was inspired by old Halloween and spoken-word records. “There was a period in the ’90s where I worked at this record store and they had CDs that were sound effect albums,” he explains. “There was nothing to sell the CD, no artwork; it’d just be a list of all these sounds. I was thinking it’d be nice to have those again.” The album is dedicated to the late Steve Albini, a friend of Armisen’s from his Chicago days, who provided some helpful guidance during the initial stages of the project.
“I wanted to do it at Steve Albini’s studio in Chicago, Electrical Audio, but since this wasn’t a collection of songs and I didn’t know how long it was going to take, I needed to do this where I live, in Los Angeles,” Armisen explained in a Drag City press statement released over the summer. “I told Steve what I was doing and asked if he knew of any engineers I could work with in LA. He was very excited about the idea and asked Dave Grohl who might be available to help. Dave recommended Darrell Thorp and we started working at Studio 606, and then later Sunset Sound. Darrell was really inventive and a lot of fun to work with. Because Steve was so instrumental in making this happen, I dedicate the album to his memory. I miss him every day.”
Armisen and Thorp—a nine-time GRAMMY-winning producer, mixer, and engineer who has worked with the likes of Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and Beck—spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with echo, microphones, and cables to really make the album’s tracks sound like natural field recordings, even though they did it all in the studio. Is 100 Sound Effects practical or a pure lark? It’s up the listener, but Armisen hopes the album can serve as more of a time capsule for 2025 decades into the future.
When not recording power tools and car doors, headlining his ongoing “Comedy for Musicians but Everyone Is Welcome Tour,” or occasionally sitting in with his favorite indie-rock band Real Estate, Armisen likes a more chill day in Los Angeles. He loves talking about the best things about Southern California life—even if it’s as simple as breakfast at home. He’d rather talk about the positive parts of the city, and like his well-documented love for Portland, he admires the quirks and warts of his longtime home. “I love Los Angeles,” says Armisen, a longtime resident of the city. “I picked it to be my home because I love it and I’m happy here.”
Here, Armisen took us through his favorite driving spots, tasty taco eats, and an ordinary work day in the City of Angels.
“I love being in my car and thinking about what my day is going to be. And then I go to this office, and I always immediately have stuff to unbox and put away for an upcoming tour or whatever.”
Breakfast at home
For his morning routine, Armisen usually stays in. “I’m not gonna show you a photo of my house, since that’s private,” he chuckles. “I wake up really early and I have breakfast at home; I have coffee and it’s a sort of meditative way to start my day. I’m not saying that I sit and meditate, but in a way it’s a version of it. I just think about what my day is going to be, and I then go to my office in Frogtown; and when I say ‘office,’ it’s like an office space, an art studio.”
Frogtown studio space
Armisen speaks of LA artist hot spot Frogtown with a real fondness. He loves the area and its overall welcoming vibe. “Two other artists work next to me in our studio space, but for me it’s also a little music practice space,” he explains. “But now it’s just become [a place where], when I go on tour, all my equipment is there. I’ve had an office in Frogtown for a long time. In fact, during Portlandia we used to write some of our seasons in Frogtown.”
Armisen usually likes to drive down Riverside Drive to get there from his home. “It’s right near Griffith Park and it’s a short commute, but I love being in my car and thinking about stuff, about what my day is going to be. And then I go to this office, and I always immediately have stuff to unbox and put away for an upcoming tour or whatever.”
The Drum Buddy by Quintron
Armisen’s office/studio space is currently crammed full of drum gear, books, records, objets d’art, and music memorabilia—the latter including a Devo energy dome and a Replacements promotional placemat—as well as a Drum Buddy, a light-activated drum machine created by keyboardist/inventor Quintron, a.k.a Robert Rolston.
Around 10 a.m., he usually takes Zoom meetings or business-related phone calls. After the tumultuousness of life on tour or on the set, he appreciates the pure ordinariness of it all. “I’m like, ‘OK, I’m at a workplace. This is my job, so I’ll do that.’”
“Spoke Cafe is a bicycle shop where they repair your bike. They have a farro bowl with tempeh and Brussels sprouts, and I feel healthy when I eat it. Oh, I sound like a real vegan.”
Break time at Just What I Kneaded, Spoke Bicycle Cafe, Wax Paper, or HomeState
When taking a lunch break from work, Armisen usually likes to go somewhere within walking distance from his studio space, so he’ll go to the vegan bakery Just What I Kneaded, the Spoke Cafe, or the sandwich shop Wax Paper, all of which are in Frogtown. “They have a sort of fake egg sandwich that I get at Just What I Kneaded, and they have tacos, too,” he says. “I’m not vegan, but I like choosing vegan options. The Spoke Cafe is a bicycle shop where they repair your bike, and then on the side of it is the cafe. They have a farro bowl with tempeh and Brussels sprouts, and I feel healthy when I eat it. Oh, I sound like a real vegan,” he laughs.
But at Wax Paper, he veers away from the vegan side of things, usually ordering the tuna sandwich named after radio journalist and Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal. “Or maybe I’ll take a drive nearby and go to HomeState Tacos, which is on Glendale Boulevard in Atwater Village. Those are my little quick places.”
Errands around the Americana
Like many Angelenos, Armisen is an errands and mini roadtrip kind of guy. He has his favorite LA drives, and while describing them sometimes sounds a little like one of the characters from his famous SNL sketch “The Californians” with Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. “I love running errands around the Americana in Glendale,” Armisen notes. “It can be something as dumb as, ‘I need boxes, I need tape, I need computer stuff,’ or whatever. It’s one of my favorite things about LA. So if I’m in a rush, sometimes I’ll stop there.”
“[With the LA River], it’s like I have somewhat of a connection in nature; there’s a lot of birds here, and it’s nice to hear the sound of the water. It’s a nice long walk, and there’s no car traffic, so it’s this really kind of serene experience.”
Walking along the LA River
If his afternoon is free, Armisen loves to walk along the scenic stretch of the LA River that runs through Elysian Valley near his office in Frogtown. “I’m actually not good about being in nature,” he admits. “Going on a hike in the mountains is too hard for me; just all the bugs and stuff, and I don’t like to get my sneakers dirty. So here, it’s like I have somewhat of a connection in nature; there’s a lot of birds here, and it’s nice to hear the sound of the water. It’s a nice long walk, and there’s no car traffic, so it’s this really kind of serene experience. In the winter, the rainy season brings the water up really high, so it’s really rumbling, which is actually kind of scary. It’s pretty impressive as a river!”
Amoeba Records, Record Safari, and Run Out Groove Records
One of Armisen’s favorite music stores is Amoeba Records in Hollywood, and if he has time after office hours, he likes to indulge in some record shopping there. “If we’re describing a perfect day, there are days where I’m like, ‘Oh, I know there’s some new records coming out,’ or ‘There’s a show and I’ll go to Amoeba.’”
Armisen also loves checking out Record Safari in Los Feliz and Run Out Groove Records in Burbank. “When I buy something from these places, it’s less of like, ‘I’m a collector and I have to fulfill a list.’ It’s more like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that this kind of jazz existed before.’ So it’s not so serious, and more wondering what each record is like. And getting to buy records, it’s like my favorite.”
Largo and dining in LA
After a long day of work and errands, a show at Largo at the Coronet is a favorite for Armisen. “I play there every month and it kind of gets me ready for touring. It helps me get my set together,” says Armisen, who often heads to the venue to see his friends perform. He loves seeing shows at many LA music venues; two of his favorites are The Teragram Ballroom and The Bellwether.
When he isn’t out on tour, Armisen likes to have a classic dinner at home with his family. “[We] order in and it’s a nice night, and then things kind of start to shut down early. Usually LA is so nice at night, so it does feel kind of like a very comforting feeling. If I go out to dinner, it’s usually to Little Dom’s, Blairs, or All Time—they’re classic go-to’s in the Los Feliz and Silverlake areas. All three of those places are great, and I’ve been going to them for years.”
But whenever Armisen is in the mood for sushi, he’ll jump in the car and head to Sasabune Glendale. “It’s right near the Americana, up on the third floor of a building just north of it, and it’s like an omakase place. And it is the best Japanese food I’ve had—the best, the best, the best! It’s just the right amount of empty-slash-crowded, and they’re so nice. It’s my favorite sushi in LA.”
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Armisen ends our chat on his perfect day in LA with a couple of local curveballs. “There’s a museum called The Museum of Jurassic Technology out in Culver City, which I like, but I can’t describe it for you—it’s a place you have to go to and find out for yourself. And there’s also a little run on Beverly Boulevard, where right after Larchmont it goes through a golf course. I just love driving down that little run. I don’t know what it is; there’s something about it that’s the most perfect, comfortable drive. It’s only a couple of blocks, but it’s a weird favorite spot of LA.” FL
